Sunday, April 18, 2010

More Coaching Insights for Traders

* Pull out your largest trades--and your most active trading days-- in the past three months and assess the P/L just for those. That will tell you quite a bit about how you are dealing with risk and reward;

* Pull out your top ten winning and bottom ten losing trades over the past three months and compare their P/L. That will tell you quite a bit about your trading discipline;

* If you are much more unhappy when you lose than happy when you win, a 50% win ratio will feel like losing over time, even if you're making money;

* If you are always looking for the next trade, you will ultimately overtrade;

* If you are confident in your ability to make money, you will not fear missing market moves;

* If you are a consistent trend follower or a consistent countertrend trader, you will not consistently make money;

* Dissect your best trades and you will find out who you are as a trader;

* You won't always make money, but you should always expect to trade well;

* You can't control markets, but you can always control when you bet and how much you bet;

* If an athlete spent as much time working on his game as you do on your trading, would the athlete make a living as a professional?

* Great traders work on themselves after a winning streak;

* Confidence when losing, humility when winning: a formula for long-term success in markets.

About Me

Author of The Psychology of Trading (Wiley, 2003), Enhancing Trader Performance (Wiley, 2006), and The Daily Trading Coach (Wiley, 2009) with an interest in using historical patterns in markets to find a trading edge. I am also interested in performance enhancement among traders, drawing upon research from expert performers in various fields. I took a leave from blogging starting May, 2010 due to my role at a global macro hedge fund. Blogging resumed in February, 2014, along with regular posting to Twitter and StockTwits (@steenbab).